Lakhs of commuters stranded as rain disrupts railway services

With the rain lashing the city, suburban train services nearly came to a standstill on Monday evening, inconveniencing over 70 lakh commuters.

At least eight Central Railway (CR) suburban main line trains were cancelled, while others were running 30 minutes late. Services on the harbour line trains were 20 minutes behind schedule.

Commuters said it took nearly 4 hours to reach Navi Mumbai from CST. “Trains were bursting at the seams. I managed to board a train at Chinchpokli after four previous ones were cancelled,” said Krupa Kailash Rane, 32, a Thane resident.

Services on the Western Railway (WR) were also hit as 30 trains were cancelled, sources said. “The 5.37pm Churchgate-bound train was stuck at Andheri for over 15 minutes. It then stopped between Vile Parle and Santacruz. It was extremely frustrating,” said Dadar resident Divya Bundela, 25.

Though, both CR and WR officials claimed that there was 20-30 minute delay, commuters claimed they had to wait for an hour or more. “It took me four hours to reach Mankhurd from CST,” said said Sandeep Billawa, 31, a banker.

Commuters also complained about no announcements being made either in trains or at platforms. “I was stuck in a train for more than a hour. The authorities should have made announcement to inform commuters whether the train would run or not,” said Chanchal Joshi, 19.

AK Singh, PRO, CR, said, “The water on the tracks was within the safety limit.

Hence we operated the trains within a speed limit.” However, Western Railway PRO, N David, claimed that services were only 15-20 minutes late.